Voices of Sandy: A life away from their beach

Jan. 13, 2013

Bayville - Scott Edrington with one of a little more than a dozen surfboards he still has of his once extensive collection, many of which were lost in Superstorm Sandy from his Ortley Beach home which was destroyed in the storm. Peter Ackerman/Staff Photographer - Ortley121230aaa

Scott and Carolyn Edrington in Bayville, where they moved after superstorm Sandy. / PETER ACKERMAN / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

sandyvoices to listen to stories from the Edringtons and other victims of Sandy.

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Many of the major moments in Scott Edrington’s life happened on the sands and in the surf of Ortley Beach.

It was there that he learned how to surf, and where he worked one of his first jobs, as a bus boy at the Surf Club. And it was there that he married his long-time girlfriend, Carolyn Wulff, on the deck of the beach house his grandfather built in 1954.

He and Carolyn, now 54, had met on the beach when he was working as a lifeguard back in 1981.

With superstorm Sandy bearing down on the Jersey Shore, the Edringtons fled, grabbing some important papers, a few clothes and their tabby cat, Sushi.

“I told people to go,” Scott, 58, said. “Even if you survive it, you’re going to be miserable for many, many hours.”

That night, the storm’s surge breached Ortley’s dune line, destroying the house and upending the Edringtons’ lives.

He lost more than a dozen of his prized long boards, although he’s recovered seven of them since the storm.

Now living at a house in Berkeley’s Bayville section, the Edringtons miss their house by the sea.

The way the light looks is different inland, and the sounds aren’t the same.

“You wake up and it’s different,” he said of living in Bayville. “You don’t see the ocean. You don’t smell it.”